French companies continue to struggle to keep up with their European peers

In this year's French Webranking edition, French companies continue to fall behind their European peers and need to start improving their corporate websites. In today's competitive landscape, it is essential that companies communicate clearly in all communication channels in order to build and maintain their reputation.

This year, the French companies have on average received 38.2 points out of 100 which is the same score they got last year. With the average score for the European companies being 44 points, the companies continue to fall behind in meeting stakeholder expectations. In fact, French companies have the lowest average score (together with UK) of all the ranked countries.

Improvement is definitely needed in order for the companies to meet the increasing expectations of all stakeholder groups.

Detailed R&D information

The strongest performing area for the French companies is when it comes to presenting information about the company, where the performance is at the same level as their European peers.

The companies are especially good at presenting how they are working with research and development, something that is getting increasingly important in today's competitive landscape. As many as 68% of the ranked companies present R&D information, which compares with 55% of the European companies.

For a company to thrive and succeed over the long term, research and development are essential. Because of this, showing investors that you are continuously working on improving and innovating your company on your corporate website is of high importance.

Arkema, a manufacturer of speciality materials, present detailed information about how they are working with innovation. R&D key figures are also presented, for example, showing how much of their revenue is generated from R&D. A dedicated innovation magazine is also offered, creating even more insight.

Information about the share is still a challenge

Providing sufficient share information continues to be the biggest challenge for French companies. This is concerning since investors need detailed information about the share to make informed investment decisions.

One example is when it comes to communicating information about divided payments, French corporations lag behind. The companies miss presenting both their dividend policies and the history of payments.

Dividends are a common source of investment income, and they also serve as an announcement of a company's success. Investors tend to choose stocks with steady dividend payments. Companies that pay a consistent or increasing dividend are also seen as financially stable companies that would make suitable investments.

Because of this, a dividend policy should be presented on a corporate website. A dividend policy makes it clear to potential investors what they can expect to receive in dividend payouts since most investors want to be able to predict the dividend payout.

The history of the dividend payout should also be presented to give investors an overview of the development and to help them predict future payments.

Schneider Electric is a good example since they present both their dividend policy (including the payout ratio) and a graph showing the history of the payments. The history covers seven years, creating a good overview of the development.

Screenshot of Schneiders website showing the dividend history.

Vinci, Arkema and TotalEnergies the top performers

Vinci remain as the French top performer for the seventh year in a row. Vinci offer good press and media information, as well as reporting related material.

Arkema have moved up one placement from third to second place, improving the total score by 3.6 points. They offer impressive sustainability and careers information.

TotalEnergies have dropped one placement, from second to third. Still, they are only 0.2 points behind Arkema so the competition is tough. TotalEnergies perform well when it comes to presenting detailed sustainability information.

Bouygues the best climber

Bouygues are the company that have improved their score the most since last year, by 7.7 points. This has resulted in them climbing from 39th place to 20th place. Well done!